


Virtue

by thedevilchicken



Category: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Genre: Breathplay, Brother/Brother Incest, Bruises, Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:21:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21709654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: There are bruises at Uther's throat. They both know Vortigern is the one who put them there.
Relationships: Uther Pendragon/Vortigern (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22
Collections: Consent Issues Exchange 2019





	Virtue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



Vortigern fits his fingers to the bruises at his brother's throat. 

They're the wrong way around, really, so his fingers don't make a precise match to the bruises on his skin even though he's definitely the one that left them there; the issue is that when he squeezed at Uther's neck until he gasped for breath, he was kneeling behind him, not standing in front of him. He's standing in front of him now, with Uther's dark eyes holding steady on him in the unsteady flicker of the candlelight, so the best that he can do is turn his hands, palms out, thumbs down, and line them up inexactly. It's good enough, he thinks. The look of it makes him smile, and it gets the point across. They both know who's responsible. Uther would kill any other man who tried to put his hands on him like that, of course assuming that Vortigern didn't get there first. 

When Uther swallows, Vortigern feels it, and suddenly it's not good enough at all. He pushes Uther back, he pushes Uther down; he goes down hard and fast onto the chair at his table with none of the grace he shows with a sword in his hand, and Vortigern straddles his lap with his knees spread wide and his feet tucked back, just the toes of his booted feet resting against the floor. He's not well balanced like this, he knows, and the position forces him to lean forward just a fraction, with one hand pressed at Uther's shoulder to steady himself. The other arm he slips back over Uther's shoulder and curls awkwardly around so that his hand rests on Uther's throat almost as if from behind. It lines up. His smile returns. And when he presses, just lightly, feeling Uther's pulse quicken underneath his fingertips, Uther's infuriatingly placid look turns sharp and hot.

 _Good_ , Vortigern thinks. _That's an excellent beginning_. But he knows this actually began two nights ago, if not before. It's taken two nights for the bruises to stand out like this, though during the day Uther hides them with a neckcloth as if he feels the winter chill in the air more than there's been evidence of before. He doesn't, but only Vortigern knows that. Chances are he's even hidden it from Igraine. But two nights ago, when Vortigern went into the castle bathhouse, there were no bruises at his brother's throat that Uther had to hide. 

When he went inside, Uther was already there - he hadn't expected that, and he certainly hadn't planned for that, but the surprise he felt at seeing him was far from unpleasant. His brother had his back to him but Vortigern would have known him anywhere, in the midst of crowds, ballroom or battlefield, so identifying him alone in a bathhouse in his own castle was an extremely simple feat. He had his back to him and he was very nearly naked, except for the thin linen cloth wrapped around his waist, clinging to his damp skin, so wet where it touched that it was very nearly transparent. Vortigern cleared his throat and when Uther turned, not particularly hastily, Vortigern could see the cloth was secured with a precarious tuck very low at one hip. It clung to his thighs, and it clung to the line of his cock, leaving exceedingly little to the imagination. It had been some time, but Vortigern supposed he didn't have to imagine; on the other hand, he couldn't say he regretted the reminder. 

"Brother," Uther said. "Were you looking for me?"

"As it happens, I was looking for a bath," Vortigern replied. He held his arms out to his sides. "Help me to undress?"

Uther chuckled fondly. He shook his head, his bath-wet hair still dripping over his shoulders, and he came across the room, leaving a trail of half-formed damp footprints on the flagstone floor. He lifted his hands and began unbuttoning his brother's doublet, then stepped around behind him and eased it from his shoulders. He untucked Vortigern's tunic and he pulled it up; his nails raking lightly at his chest were likely just an accident. Then he came back around in front of him and dropped into a crouch to help remove his boots. Vortigern balanced, one hand at Uther's bath-warm shoulder, first for one boot and then for the other. He was apparently still surprisingly adept at stripping him.

He supposes he should have ignored the way that the cloth at Uther's waist rode up and left him entirely exposed. As Uther crouched there in front of him, knees wide, balanced so perfectly on the balls of his feet, Vortigern could see his cock hanging down heavy between his thighs. Vortigern smiled faintly.

"What exactly would you have done if I hadn't been here?" Uther asked. He glanced up at him briefly, teasing, and then started to unlace the front of Vortigern's trousers. "Dare I believe you might have undressed yourself?"

"Honestly, I'd have probably called for a servant."

Uther raised his brows. His fingers were tucked in just beneath the waistband, the backs of them brushing at his abdomen beneath. "So I'm your servant, then?" he asked.

"Perhaps," he replied. "Does that make me your king?"

Uther smiled. "Perhaps," he said. "What does your majesty require me to do?"

"Well, firstly, it appears you haven't finished undressing me."

Uther took the not exactly subtle hint and peeled down Vortigern's trousers. They were tight; they only came down easily as far as his knees, and then Uther looked back up at him with his hands resting down on his own thighs. He looked unsure, teetering on the edge of uncertainty, which was far from usual in matters concerning King Uther Pendragon. He looked unsure, and Vortigern wondered if that was due to his king's pride or his brother's. Perhaps that didn't matter, though; his mouth curled in perfect satisfaction as he saw that Uther's cock had begun to stiffen. Perhaps that was because he'd seen Vortigern's had done likewise.

He understood what would happen next, because it had happened so many times before, over the years, years before: if left to his own devices, Uther would make his excuses, back down, and leave him there. So Vortigern slipped one hand into his brother's wet hair, to the back of his neck, as he used his other hand to stroke himself. The strokes weren't light, and they weren't teasing, and he was hard against his own palm quite quickly indeed. He held Uther there as he rubbed the tip of his cock against his lips, slightly parted as they were, and when he moved away, Uther licked them. He grimaced, but Vortigern knew he wasn't from disgust. He clenched his jaw and bared his teeth but it wasn't anger. When he looked up, he said, "What does your majesty want from me?"

"Take off that cloth." 

Uther complied. He removed the cloth from around his waist. He untucked it and he peeled it away from where it clung to his skin, and he set it aside on the floor. He bared himself completely.

"Kneel."

Uther complied. It wasn't so far from his crouch onto his knees; he just pushed forward with his hips and hit the floor. It brought him closer to him, so close that Vortigern could feel his breath against his skin. 

"Use your mouth."

Uther complied. After a moment's hesitation, he turned his head and he touched him, using just his mouth, skimming the side of the length of Vortigern's cock. He sucked there slow and hot just by the base. He let his cheek drag back up to the tip and he licked away the moisture there, then he opened up his mouth and licked his lips and took the aching head of him inside. He sucked, his hands still down against his own thighs, and as Vortigern looked down at him he could see his brother's fingers and knuckles were white with how hard he was gripping. He could see his brother's cock was stiff and dark and straining. And when he slipped his fingers back into Uther's wet hair, still dripping down over his shoulders, Uther's eyes opened. They looked at each other, with Uther's lips sealed tight around his little brother's cock.

It would have been so very easy to have finished things like that, but Vortigern eased him back, just far enough that he slipped out from his mouth. He ran one thumb over Uther's bottom lip, pinker than it had been from the act it had so recently engaged in. He dipped the tip of his thumb in past his lips, ran it over the hard edge of his brother's bottom teeth, pressed the pad to his tongue just for a moment before he withdrew again. Uther would have sucked on his fingers if he'd asked him to. Uther would have sucked on his cock or licked at his hole or kissed his mouth until neither of them had a second's breath left in them. Vortigern didn't doubt he would have done precisely as he was told, and the thought of it was tantalising. 

"Your majesty?" Uther said, his cheeks flushed almost as dark as his cock was, his voice strained by desire that Vortigern knew he told himself he should not harbour. "What can I do for you now?"

Vortigern laughed. He was right: Uther did everything that he was told to, until Vortigern had him there on the bathhouse floor. He oiled himself when he was told to, on his wide-spread knees and one splayed hand down on the flagstones as he gasped and pushed his fingers in right to the knuckles. He bent down low on his forearms as Vortigern knelt between his calves and rubbed his cockhead in between his cheeks, and rubbed his slick rim with the pad of his thumb. He stifled a groan as Vortigern pushed his cock inside him, speared him with it as he stroked his back to feel the notches in his spine right to the base where his cock was in him. He did everything that he was told to, until Vortigern urged him up from his hands onto his knees and they both came with Vortigern's hands wrapped tight around his throat, to the sound of Uther's desperate, gasping breaths. Perhaps it was easier for him then than all the times he'd fled from it, by simple virtue of the fact he was pretending he was someone else. 

And, when they were done, when Vortigern withdrew and trailed his fingers down against his brother's come-slicked hole and made him shiver, when he stood and left him kneeling, there were oily handprints on the floor like Uther's palms. The servants would scrub them away, but only time could remove the marks he'd left at Uther's neck. He's pleased by that; he wants them to linger.

He knows, of course, that Uther would rather forget this, or deny this, and go on in their daily life as if it hadn't happened. That's been his modus operandi all these years, after all, though they were barely more than children the last time he allowed it, and changing now would be against his so virtuous character. But Vortigern won't let him forget it, or deny it, or proceed as if the things they did weren't real and didn't happen. Not this time. 

He sits astride his brother's lap, almost precariously so, as if he's daring him to topple him, but the fact is he knows Uther and so he knows he won't. Vortigern is not a very small man, and not a very light man by consequence of the muscle that's been put onto his frame by practice with a sword for all these years, but his brother is taller and stronger and he could always stop him, always, if he wanted to. His fingers press harder to the bruises that he left, and he hopes that Uther knows he's only left them alone this long so that he can see them at their best, not because he had doubts of his own. Vortigern, at least, has never doubted. 

He presses harder and when Uther says, "Don't," as if might be a warning, Vortigern just laughs at him. He knows he doesn't mean it. If he meant it, he'd push him away. What Uther does instead is take two handfuls of his brother's doublet. He steadies him, and Vortigern sees it in his eyes the moment he stops struggling. For now, at least, because he doesn't doubt that struggle will return to him.

Perhaps his virtuous king is not so virtuous after all. Or perhaps it's just that there's so very little he can deny his brother, even if he should, and even if he tries to.

Vortigern will not make a better king than Uther does. But he thinks at least he'll be more steadfast.


End file.
